I signed up on the Diaspora Germany pod, as there was an offer for a 7 day free trial. I was not satisfied with my experience on Diaspora, so I clicked on the button to close my account before the 7 days were over. I then landed on a page that said there was an error, and the account was not closed. I then sent an email to the pod administrator (info@diasp.de) which was shown on the error page, and I received no answer. I sent a second email requesting to close the account, and there was again no answer. My credit card was then charged €12, and it there is no way to close the account. So this is now fraud, so I am writing a message here in the hopes that someone can contact someone with Diaspora Germany to let them know that they need to answer their emails, fix their system, and refund my money. My next step will be to notify the police. Sorry for being so hostile, but this is really unacceptable.
Hey there, sorry to hear you’re having issues.
Note that “Diaspora Germany” isn’t actually a representation of the project, but rather an individual hosted instance of our open source project that we have no control over. I wasn’t even aware that diasp.de requires users to provide credit card details to sign up, but everyone has to run their pod somehow, I guess. Note that if you want to use diaspora*, there are a bunch of pods that don’t charge you - so either use a pod like nerdpol.ch, or you can even set up your own!
All we as a project could do is send an email to the same address, so that probably won’t get far. When did you send your email?
I suggest getting in touch with your credit card company/bank and have them refund you. If that doesn’t work and you are within the EU, you can also send a physical letter to the address shown in the terms (all the way at the bottom) and demand a refund that way.
Thank you Dennis.
I am in the EU so I will go ahead and send a letter. The emails that I sent to them were in the last two weeks. Its actually a surprise to get an email from anyone within Diaspora, because I got online and I posted a few things, looked around, and it looked like it was a ghost town. I was really looking for someone who could give me an honest assesment of whether Diaspora would be useful for our purposes, as we were intersted in setting up a pod.
Maybe you would have a view on what we are doing, and whether Diaspora could be something that would fit with the work that we are doing. This is what I posted last week:
We are working on the creation of a new kind of organization working in
the area of social and ecological transformation with the mission of
creating a peaceful and sustainable world. We have built the foundation
for the launch of an online magazine which would work with our NGO for
social and ecological projects around the world. We have been
considering the building of a social network within our website(s).
However, as we were researching alternative social networks, we stumbled
upon Diaspora. In many ways, Diaspora resonates well with our views and
mission. It is however clear that we cannot create a private network
built upon Diaspora, but if we were to establish a pod as part of the
Diaspora network, is there any way in which people who register with our
pod are able to feel that they are part of our local online community
(meaning a community of the members who are registered through our pod),
and at the same time, could they feel that they are part of the global
Diaspora community? Or is this a situation in which people would
register through our pod and then only be part of the global Diaspora
community without any affiliation within our members?Hopefully, my
question is clear. I am open to any answers, suggestions and/or ideas.
Ah! You sent me an email (subject “establishing a pod, nonprofit, community”), but I was on vacation, so I didn’t respond yet. 
I’m back now, and I’ll take the time to respond to your email soon’ish (as in this week), because the mail contained more information than your post here, and I want to make sure to answer your questions correctly, instead of quickly throwing together a reply.
Good luck with your diasp.de problem, and please let us know if they keep ignoring you, as that would be a valuable information to us.
I have sent a message to the podmin of diasp.de, asking them to respond here. Hopefully they will act speedily to resolve this issue.
I think this is very unlikely to be a case of fraud, which would mean a deliberate attempt to take money from you dishonestly. That pod has been open for a long time, and has acted in good faith in the past. It’s more likely that some glitch meant that the person who would be able to process your refund has not received the message about the cancellation of your account. As the payment system is something they added to their pod and not a part of the core diaspora software, no one else will be able to know how this system works. Let’s give them a chance to put this right before accusing them of bad motivation.
Thanks for the help!
@andamansunda, I’ve just received this reply from the diasp.de podmin:
Many thanks for the report, we will check and resolve this issue.
The podmin has already replied that this has been resolved, so hopefully @andamansunda has heard from them, and received their refund.
Thank you all for your help, sorry if I got a bit aggressive. It was a bit annoying, but all is settled now. Take care.